Douglas John Hall is Professor of Christian Theology in the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Among his many books are the first two volumes of a proposed trilogy, Thinking the Faith: Christian Theology in a North American Context, and Professing the Faith; Lighten Our Darkness: Toward an Indigenous Theology of the Cross; The Reality of the Gospel and the Unreality of the Churches; The Stewardship of Life in the Kingdom of Death; and God and Human Suffering. Permission to use this material has been granted.
This booklet is Number 5 in the series “Theology and Worship Occasional Papers,” published by the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.. This booket was prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock.
SUMMARY
(ENTIRE BOOK) Professor Hall ‘thinks the faith’ from within the North American cultural and ecclesial context. His theological work is not a timeless abstraction, but a rigorous attempt to engage Christian faith with social and historical actuality so that the gospel may be more faithfully proclaimed and lived.
Chapters
- II: Ecclesia Crucis: The Theologic of Christian “Awkwardness”
Intentional disengagement from the dominant culture with which, in the past, the older Protestant denominations n North America have been bound up, is the necessary precondition for a meaningful engagement with that same dominant culture.
- I: The Spirit to the Churches in North America: “Disestablish Yourselves!”
Dr. Hall proposes that Christians ought to provide positive guidance for the process of deconstantinianization in which, willy nilly, the formerly ‘established’ forms of the church are presently immersed.